


John - 49

by phantisma



Series: Ages [20]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-10
Updated: 2006-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantisma/pseuds/phantisma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - John's POV.  When John is 49, he is trying to be a part of his sons' lives, and feeling like a failure when Dean seems to loose it a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John - 49

He was a month short of fifty, and he felt every year hanging off of him as he pulled himself up out of the bed that was too small and too hard and scratched at his beard. He’d stopped shaving the night they nearly lost Dean. It hadn’t seemed important after that.

Watching his son go through that was maybe the most difficult thing he had ever done. Knowing on some level that he’d already gone through it once before and made the choice to go back to it filled John Winchester with an ache he doubted would be alleviated anytime soon.

Sam was still asleep. He’d likely be angry when he woke and realized his father had dropped sleeping pills in his food the night before to make sure he slept, but John wasn’t above being sneaky to get the right thing for his boys. That was nearly a defining feature of the man he was.

He stretched and listened to the quiet. Dean was up and probably in the kitchen. He would have drugged him too…if Dean was eating and if the idea wasn’t so completely abhorrent. It would be a long time before he got much more than aspirin into his son. Not that he could blame him.

John stood and made his way into the bathroom to pee and shower. He held no illusions that either Dean or Sam understood the reasons for the way he had left them, or that either of them loved him. They trusted him though, and for the moment, that was enough. He hadn’t earned their love. Not yet.

He let the water flow over him and cracked his neck and shoulders. He was feeling the effects of the inactivity. He hadn’t stayed in one place this long since the boys had been with him. He was restless, but his job wasn’t done here. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Dean was hurting…the memories that the…angel Reuel had given back to him were no blessing. Dean had nearly stopped speaking after that…and he still wouldn’t tell either John or Sam anything but a really broad overview of the two years of memories.

It was fairly obvious that something had transpired between father and son, and for that matter, between the boys…something traumatic enough that Dean felt the need to hide it. As a result the apartment was filled with a lot of tension and heavy sighs and little else. Sam had to leave to head back to Stanford in a few days, and John wasn’t certain he could get the boy on the plane if Dean didn’t start snapping out of it.

He stepped from the shower and paused to shave, figuring a good clean start to the day might help him put everything in perspective. That done, he dressed, checking on Sam before heading into the kitchen for coffee.

As he suspected, Dean was there, sitting in the dark. He pushed a piece of paper across the table. “What’s this?”

Dean looked like shit, like the sound of John’s voice hurt him. “Address. Hunt.”

John looked at the paper, squinting in the dark at the address. It was four states from where they were. John looked at him, seeing the few external signs of the visions…the squint of his eyes, the aversion to light. “What is it?”

“Little girl getting hurt. Little boy possessed. Isn’t pretty.”

John sighed. It wasn’t ever pretty. But at least it was a hunt, a reason to get some miles under his wheels, stretch his legs. He slipped the paper into his pocket. “I’ll leave in a few hours.”

Dean nodded, but didn’t look at John. In fact, he hadn’t looked directly at John in days. “How long since you’ve slept?” John asked, sliding into the chair opposite his son. “You look like shit.” And he did. He hadn’t showered or shaved since Reuel had visited, had barely slept, hadn’t eaten. He drank coffee, smoked cigarettes, though John didn’t know where they’d come from, and chewed on his fingers.

“Can’t sleep. Dreams.” Dean licked his chapped lips and John had to resist the urge to grab the boy and drag him to bed, restrain him and drug him into sleep that he needed so desperately.

The hunt was enticing, but he didn’t like leaving Dean like this, not with Sam leaving too. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone.”

Dean snorted, his eyes darting around the room, reminding John that Dean saw a lot more than he did these days. It made him uneasy. If he was honest with himself part of him wondered if Dean wasn’t actually delusional, on top of being gifted.

Which, only made him feel guilty, and feeling guilty while Dean shut him out and Sam obsessed wasn’t really getting them anywhere. Dean wanted time to adjust. That’s what he’d been saying for days. John had tried to give it to him, but he was losing Dean all over again, losing him into his own head, into…whatever he knew that he wouldn’t talk about. “What can’t you tell us? Was it…that bad?” He cringed even as he said it, but Dean looked up. Dean looked at him, not through him or past him.

“Bad? I made a fucking deal with a fucking demon to take away two whole fucking years of my life Dad. How bad do you think things have to get to go there?”

John nodded. It was the reaction he wanted, anger…an emotion beyond the dull, lifeless nothing he’d been seeing for days. “Pretty bad, I imagine.” He kept his eyes locked on Dean’s. “Reuel said he’d take it back, if you couldn’t handle it.”

Dean stared and John knew somehow he’d poked his way in, that he’d found the button that would push Dean out of his stupor. When Dean deflated in his seat, his body relaxing a little, John breathed out in relief.

“No. I can. I just…I’m not sure what scares me more right now, Dad…the thing in the corner you can’t see…the fact that I can see it…or the fact that I am probably delusional.”

Truth was, that scared John pretty badly too…but he couldn’t admit that. Not now. Dean got up and moved around him and John forced himself to stay still.

“What is it you want me to tell you, Dad?”

John wasn’t even sure he heard him, and had no idea where to start in answering that question. There was so much.

“Why don’t you start by telling me why you’re so angry with me?” Sam’s voice filled the kitchen, touched with anger and desperation and John wanted to tell him to leave. Dean had just about opened up, and John could just about feel him shut right back down. He started to get up, but they were already yelling, Dean shaking, then the cupboards were rattling and Dean’s coffee cup shattered.

Dean pushed Sam into the wall and John tried to pull him off, only to find himself being _pushed_ across the kitchen, though both of Dean’s hands were on Sam’s face. Then Sam was sliding down the wall and Dean was walking away, pouring coffee into a new cup and returning to the table. “Just get the fuck out, Sam. Go to school. Give me some space.”

John wasn’t sure which one of them needed him more. Sam wouldn’t look at him, his eyes skimming over John’s face and away. He saw fear and shame in Sam’s eyes as he picked himself up off the floor. Dean was shut off, shut down, huddled over his coffee.

John reached out to help Sam, but he shook his head. “I’ll go, Dean…if that’s what you want. I know I’ve done some pretty horrible things to you, and if you want to hate me…fine…go ahead.” Sam said, leaning across the table. He was shaking, though John couldn’t tell if it was an after affect of what Dean did to him, or if it was emotion. "I just want you to know that I love you…have always loved you…and I am so….sorry I ever hurt you.”

Sam left the room then, and John stared down at his eldest son for a long minute, then followed his younger one from the room. He found Sam in the bedroom, throwing clothes into his backpack. “I’ll meet Jessica at the hotel. We’re flying out together.” Sam said without looking up.

“What was that back there?” John asked as gently as he could.

Sam shook his head. “Not my place, Dad.” He shoved a flannel shirt into the bag and looked up. “It was…” He closed his eyes. “God…I’m an ass. I mean…shit, Dad. He was right…I…I’ve done some shitty things to him…and I let myself believe that this would change something…that I could atone for it.”

He snorted as he drew the gun out from under his pillow and started to put in his bag, then realized where he was going and tossed it back onto the bed. “Apparently I was smarter at fourteen the first time around.”

“Sam, listen…I know things are…difficult. But you need to remember, we’re dealing with demons here. They lie, cheat, deceive. Chances are that deal Dean made affected how you handled yourself just as much as it affected him.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m just gonna do what he wants, Dad. I’m gonna go to school, finish…and hope that’s enough space for him to get his head on straight.” Sam looked John in the eye, and he saw the same shame and fear there in the green depths as there had been in the kitchen.

“I’ll drive you…just wait by the truck. I want to talk to your brother first.”

Sam looked for a minute like he might cry, then swallowed it. “Don’t be mad, it isn’t his fault. Everything about this is my fault. I should have…been the brother he needed.”

“Go on down, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Sam nodded and John watched him go. His boys weren’t children anymore and sometimes he needed to work to remind himself of that fact. Even if they were, it wasn’t like he was exactly father of the year. Still, he was their father, and Dean needed to understand how much Sam was hurting, how much Sam had put on the line to help his brother.

“That wasn’t a very nice thing you just did to your brother,” he said without preamble as he reentered the kitchen.

Dean didn’t even look up as he muttered, “Fuck you.”

John’s hand came down on the pack of cigarettes, pulling them away to force Dean to look at him. “You listen to me, young man. Your brother loves you and he’s done everything he could to atone for what he did as a scared little kid. It was a shit thing. It was. But fuck Dean he was just a boy. He was scared.”

John could still remember the mess Sam had been when he first ran into him at Stanford, and how it took him months to confess that he had pushed Dean into the meds, into the state he’d been in. Sam had vomited twice before he could get through the whole story.

“He was a kid and he was scared, but he isn’t now. He hasn’t been for years. He knew…fucking knew Dad…since before Cassie. He never once defended me. He never once told me what he knew. He lied and cajoled and made me afraid of myself. Do you know what that’s like?”

John felt the color drain from his face as Dean pushed past him. He didn’t know, couldn’t know. He did know what it was like for his own children to hate him, to believe he’d done the right thing for them, only to find out that they were so completely fucked up anything would have been better than what they had. He knew what it was like to think his boys were happy and safe because he only saw them from the outside…and discover years later that if he’d stepped in then…if he’d swept in and taken them away, they might have missed years of heartache.

John knew what it was like to lay awake at night and miss his boys, to watch them from a distance and pray he’d made the right choice. He knew the terror that came with realizing the mistakes he’d made.

He followed Dean out to the living room, reaching out to touch him and flinching when Dean pulled away. “Jesus, Dean! Will you let me fucking help you?”

It startled John to realize Dean was crying. Even during the worst of the withdrawal Dean had hardly cried…he’d screamed, he’d yelled…but actually tears…

Dean shook his head, tears rolling freely down his face now. “Like before? You willing to do anything to make the pain stop, eh Dad? That’s what you said to me before.”

Dean fell against the wall, his eyes closed, his body folding in on itself. “Fuck!”

“Dean, please. Tell me.” John wanted to reach for him, wanted to know what it was Dean saw with his eyes closed. Dean doubled over and John was vaguely aware of his hand pulling the knife John kept in his boot.

They turned so that John’s back was against the wall and Dean was pressing the handle of the knife into John’s hand. “Want to know, Daddy?” Something in Dean’s voice made him shiver and John tried to pull away, but Dean wasn’t letting it go. “Want to?”

The blade was in John’s hand now, Dean’s hand closed tight over John’s as Dean guided the blade to his thigh. Dean was breathing heavy, his eyes on the blade as he pressed it to his skin. “You told me anything…you said you would do it…said you would cut me if I needed it.”

Dean looked up, and John felt something flush through him…anger, fear…shame. Dean wanted it. Wanted the pain…wanted to feel the knife slice through his skin. Somehow John knew it wouldn’t be the first time. Dean’s eyes glazed over and something like anger rose inside John.

“Do you Dean? Do you need it?”

John pushed down on the blade, watching Dean’s eyes as surprise, then arousal registered in them. He felt the blade slice into the flesh of Dean’s thigh, pulled it to the side, marking him, making him bleed. “Does that fucking fix it, Dean?”

He regretted the words, the anger instantly as Dean’s eyes closed and something like ecstasy crossed his face as he staggered backward. Dean turned away, but not before John noticed the decided tent in his son’s boxers. His stomach churned and his face burned.

He was apologizing. Dean was saying he was sorry. John had cut him, and **he** was apologizing. John shook himself, reached out for his son, but he only pulled away. “Dean…god…let me look.”

Dean shook his head. He held up his hand as John tried to move closer. “I’ve had worse. I’ll be fine.”

John felt like he was going to be sick. Some part of Dean’s revulsion of him was starting to register. He’d come here to help his boys…and all he’d managed to do was hurt them. Dean was pushing him away, telling him to go take care of the hunt…give him space…leave him alone…and somehow, John knew that alone wasn’t what Dean needed just now…or rather, what any of them needed just now…but Dean was so broken, and he would do almost anything to help him put his life back together.

“Promise me you’ll get some sleep?” John asked. Dean nodded and John didn’t feel like there was much choice. “Yeah. Okay. But I’ll be back in a few days.”

John Winchester felt like he was abandoning Dean, with blood still oozing from the wound…with his body still weak and his mind in shambles…and here he was, walking away. Again.

He hated himself as he emerged into the sunlight to find Sam leaning against his truck. His younger son looked up expectantly as John emerged, then stood up straight as his eyes fell on the blood on John’s hands.

“Are you…?”

John shook his head. “I’m fine…it’s….Dean’s. How long?”

Sam must have known what he was asking, because he looked away. “Sam?”

“He hasn’t…not in a long time. I should have told you. He…he was ashamed.”

John nodded…but he knew there was more. There was something Dean…and now Sam, was hiding from him. “How long?” he repeated, his tone demanding.

Sam looked up at him. “I don’t know. Years.”

John recalled faded scars on his son’s chest and back, on his legs. He should have seen it, understood it, known what it was and what it meant. “Why?” Not that he expected Sam to have the answers.

“I asked him that…and he said…it was easier…physical pain was easier than what was in his head.”

“There’s more to it…something…” John could still see the arousal in Dean’s eyes when there was the promise of pain between them… “Did I do something to Dean? Sam…did I hurt your brother…in this…other time line?”

Sam closed his eyes and swallowed. “I can’t…Dad. Don’t ask me.”

“I have to know. I can’t…I can’t help him if I don’t know.”

Sam chewed on his lip, then shook his head again. “Can we…leave? I don’t want to talk about this here.”

John wanted an answer…wanted to grab Sam by the shoulders and shake him until he got an answer, but instead he went to his side of the truck and climbed in. Sam got in slowly and they were silent as they made their way to the nearby hotel where Sam’s girlfriend was staying. As John stopped the truck he sighed. “Dean gave me a hunt…an address. I’ll be gone a few days.”

“I’ll get Jenny to make sure he’s okay.” Sam said. They were quiet for a few minutes. “You’re welcome at our place in Palo Alto…if things get too hot.”

John nodded, his hands tightening on the steering wheel and then releasing.

“For what it’s worth, Dad…” Sam said, “…you only tried to help…but…he was already so far gone…” Sam wiped at a tear that escaped him. “I think…maybe…things are better this second time around…Maybe…”

They looked at each other for a minute, then Sam opened his door. “Be careful on the hunt, and let me know you’re okay.”

“Study hard, and kiss that pretty girlfriend for me.”

Sam nodded and climbed out, leaving John alone, with little to do but follow the address Dean had given him, and save the little girl…maybe the boy too…at least he seemed more qualified to do that than to save his own family.


End file.
